Residents Oppose Two Rezoning Plans

Residents west of Delray Beach say they will fight two zoning requests at Thursday`s meeting of the Palm Beach County Planning Commission, which advises county commissioners on zoning issues.

The two zoning requests have drawn more than 85 signatures of opposition from the residents, according to county zoning department records.

About 75 residents are opposed to a request by Danielo Giamberini to change his zoning at a half-acre site on the southeast corner of Whatley Road and West Atlantic Avenue. Giamberini said he wants a general-commercial classification for a computer store and a carpet sales store.

But residents say the broad zoning category would allow for anything from adult bookstores to other objectionable uses.

The other zoning request drawing opposition from west Delray Beach residents is for a gas station and car wash at the Atlantic Square shopping center. The shopping center is on the south side of Delray West Road and east of Carter Road. Ten letters have been sent opposing the project.

Giamberini said he is willing to place deed restrictions on his property to prevent any adult bookstores or other commercial uses that residents oppose.

But residents don`t buy that.

``He could sell the property and that probably wouldn`t apply,`` said Doug Bauch, a resident of Whatley Road.

``He`s a businessman and he`s trying to get it zoned general-commercial to make it more attractive when he sells it,`` said Bauch, one of the 75 who signed the petition. Bauch also points out that Giamberini agreed to a restricted commercial zoning request in 1982.

Since 1980 the area near the Atlantic Square shopping center has been ``besieged by shopping centers of all sizes . . . `` wrote James and Theresa Wood of Moonstone Way. They live across the street from the shopping center where the gas station and car wash are planned.

``There evidently is no end to commercial development, even when it is obvious that the need for their existence does not exist,`` said the Woods, who listed four other gas stations within 300 yards of the proposed Shell station.

Other residents complained that the station would aggravate traffic problems and create unnecessary pollution.

Shell Oil Co.`s representative, Lee Starkey, said those concerns are unfounded and that the project has the support of others in the community.

``A gas station is not a traffic generator but an attractor,`` he said. ``And there will be no direct access to it off of Atlantic.`` He also said safeguards to prevent pollution are recommended conditions of approval by the zoning department.

In late January, about 150 residents from Highpoint condominium of Delray West successfully opposed a car wash on two acres less than a half-mile from the Shell Oil Co. project. The car wash was planned on a site east of Military Trail and about a half-mile north of Delray West Road.